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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

One of the distinct highlights of
the 1st Annual Nutritional Ketosis and Metabolic Therapeutics
Conference in Tampa, FL, January 28-30, 2016, was a presentation,
“Hyperketonemia for Alzheimer’s Disease – A Case Report,” by Dr. Mary Newport.
I was privileged, by chance, to have had supper with Dr. Newport two days
earlier.

Dr. Newport’s
presentation was both professional and very personal. It was the story of the
13-year travail supporting the course of treatment of her husband’s Alzheimer’s
disease (AD) and how she learned about supplemental ketones as an adjunctive
therapy. Her talk received a sustained standing ovation. The story is
documented in Dr. Newport's article, “What If There Was a Cure
for Alzheimer’s Disease, and No One Knew?”

“Brain cells,
specifically neurons,” Dr. Newport wrote, “are very limited – more limited than
other cells – in what kinds of fuel they can use to function and stay alive.
Normally, they require glucose (sugar), but they can also use ketone bodies.”
“In Alzheimer’s disease,” she continues, “the neurons in certain areas of the
brain are unable to take in glucose due to insulin
resistance [IR] and slowly die off, a
process that appears to happen one or two decades before the symptoms become
apparent”(my emphasis). Note the similarity here to IR in Type 2 Diabetes.

“If these cells
had access to ketone bodies, they could potentially stay alive and continue to
function,” she reasoned. However, she noted, “Humans do not normally have
ketone bodies circulating and available to the brain unless they have been
starving for a couple of days or longer, or are consuming a ketogenic (very low
carbohydrate) diet, such as Atkins.” Ergo,
unless we’re starving, orstrictly dietingsuch that we areinketosis, or fasting, as we ageeveryone is at risk.This then, for me, constitutes a rationale
to supplement with ketones.

So, what are
ketones, aka ketone bodies and ketoacids? They are products of the metabolism
of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), which break down to fatty acids and
ketone bodies. MCTs are saturated fats, available commercially in oil form and
composed of caproic and caprylic acid (6 and 8 carbon chain compounds). What is
unique about MCTs is that they are metabolized differently from other saturated
fats. They go immediately to the liver, and are there utilized directly forenergy.
The other saturated fats, the long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) are absorbed by
the lymph system and circulate throughout the body, with some being used to
fill your fat cells!

The most common
food product containing MCTs is coconut
oil, now widely available in grocery stores. Refined coconut oil is about 60% medium
chain fatty acids (MCFAs), 30% LCFAs, 8% MUFAs and <2% PUFAs, but
all of them omega 6s. It “contains
no cholesterol and also contains omega-6 fatty acids [but virtually no
omega-3s]…,” So, Dr. Newport says, if you plan to get your supplemental ketones
with coconut oil, she stresses that since “it contains no omega-3 fatty
acids, it is very important to eat salmon twice a week or get enough omega-3
fatty acid from other rich sources such as fish oil capsules…” for ω-6:ω-3 balance!

Another source of
MCTs is palm kernel oil. Dr. Newport
relates, that“…after coconut and palm kernel
oil, the food that medium chain triglycerides are most concentrated in is human
breast milk.” So it must be good for us, right?

Products comprising 100% MCT oil are also
available in some health food stores and are easily obtainable online.

But who knew? As
Dr. Newport laments, the benefits of MCTs
as a therapeutic protocol for the treatment of impaired cognition, or decades
earlier as a prophylactic strategy, are little known and less recognized and/or
appreciated. Dr. Newport herself unearthed it while researching drugs
prescribed for her husband. She found another
drug in which in a pilot study some subjects “improved on memory testing with the very first test.”

And she found that “the promising ‘ingredient’
in [that drug] was simply MCT oil,
and that a dose of 20 grams (about 20 ml or 4 teaspoons) was used to produce
these results.” Translated to coconut oil (60% MCTs), Dr. Newport estimated
that her husband “would need to take 35 grams or just over two tablespoons
(about 35 ml or 7 level teaspoons) of coconut oil.” How did this all work out?
The results will be the subject of the next column.

About Me

I was diagnosed a Type 2 diabetic in 1986. I started a Very Low Carb diet (Atkins Induction) in 2002 to lose weight. I didn’t realize at the time that it would put my diabetes in clinical remission, or that I would be able to give up almost all of my oral diabetes meds. I also didn’t understand that, as I lost weight and continued to eat Very Low Carb, my blood lipids would dramatically improve (doubling my HDL and cutting my triglycerides by 2/3rds) and that my blood pressure would drop from 130/90 to 110/70 on the same meds.
Over the years I changed from Atkins to the Bernstein Diet (designed for diabetics) and, altogether lost 170 pounds. I later regained some and then lost some. As long as I eat Very Low Carb, I am not hungry and I have lots of energy. And I no longer have any of the indications of Metabolic Syndrome.
My goal, as long as I have excess body fat, is to remain continuously in a ketogenic state, both for blood glucose regulation and continued weight loss. I expect that this regimen will continue to provide the benefits of reduced systemic inflammation, improved blood lipids and lower blood pressure as well.